Former Rep. Lindy Boggs dies, 97

WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Lindy Boggs, a plantation-born Louisianan who used her soft-spoken grace to fight for civil rights during nearly 18 years in Congress after succeeding her late husband in the House, died Saturday. She was 97.

Boggs, who later served three years as ambassador to the Vatican during the Clinton administration, died of natural causes at her home in Chevy Chase, Md., according to her daughter, ABC News journalist Cokie Roberts.

Boggs' years in Congress started with a special election in 1973 to finish the term of her husband, Thomas Hale Boggs Sr., whose plane disappeared over Alaska six months earlier. Between them, they served a half-century in the House.

''It didn't occur to us that anybody else would do it,'' Roberts said in explaining why her mother was the natural pick for the congressional seat.

Her parents, who had met in college, were ''political partners for decades,'' she said, with Lindy Boggs running her husband's political campaigns and becoming a player on the Washington political scene.

Roberts called her mother ''a trailblazer for women and the disadvantaged.''

When Boggs announced her retirement in 1990, she was the only white representing a black-majority district in Congress. ''I am proud to have played a small role in opening doors for blacks and women,'' she said at the time.

Breaking with most Southern whites, Lindy Boggs saw civil rights as an inseparable part of the political reform movement of the 1940s and '50s.

''You couldn't want to reverse the injustices of the political system and not include the blacks and the poor. It was just obvious,'' she said in 1990.

She worked for the Civil Rights Acts of 1965 and 1968, Head Start and other programs to help minorities, the poor and women.

After she entered Congress, Boggs used her seat on the House Appropriations Committee to steer money to New Orleans and the rest of the state.

As a member of the House Banking and Currency Committee, she used typical steely grace to include women in the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.

''I ran into a room where there was a copying machine, wrote in 'sex and marital status' on the bill, and made 47 copies,'' she said. ''When I took it back into the subcommittee meeting, I told them I was sure it was just an oversight on their part.''

''I've seen it time after time,'' Johnston said. ''On difficult issues, powerful men and women are going toe to toe, sometimes civilly, sometimes acrimoniously. Lindy Boggs will come into the room. The debate will change. By the time she leaves the room, she usually has what she came to get.''

As the first woman to chair the Democratic National Convention, in 1976, she decreed that she would be addressed as ''Madam Chairwoman,'' rather than ''Madam Chairman'' or ''Madam Chairperson.''

''I'm a woman,'' she said. And, ''Why should it be neuter?''

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, one of the hardest-hit facilities was Lindy Boggs Medical Center, a historic hospital named in her honor the previous year.

Her Bourbon Street home also was damaged and The Washington Post reported in February 2006 that she was living in a hotel nearby.

''There are worlds of friends I miss,'' she told the newspaper. ''The culture is not there.''

Corinne Claiborne was born March 13, 1916, on a plantation near New Orleans, a descendant of William C.C. Claiborne, the state's first elected governor. She came to be known as Lindy, according to Roberts, because a nurse thought she looked like her father, Roland Claiborne, and called her ''Rolindy.''

In her first election for Congress, in March 1973, she had to overcome prejudice against her gender and privileged background.

Said her Republican opponent, Robert E. Lee: ''I've covered this district by foot, by car, by air. This is something that takes a strong, healthy man. ... A socialite is not going to do this district any good in Congress.''

Her constituents disagreed, giving her at least 60 percent of the vote in every election from then on.

Her Vatican posting was from 1997 to early 2001, and she said her goals were to work with the Vatican on promoting democracy, tolerance, religious freedom, peace and human rights.

In 2000, she announced that she would resign after President Bill Clinton left office, no matter which party won.

''It's been an honor and a privilege and a wonderful opportunity to be in this position, but it's also extremely exhausting,'' she said at the time.